Restoring a Nation of Home Owners: What Went Wrong with Home Ownership in Britain, & How to Start Putting it Right
By: Peter Saunders
August 2016
Civitas
Distributed by Coronet Books
ISBN: 9781906837808
153 Pages, Illustrated
$20.00 Paper original
Description:
After almost a century of continuous expansion, home ownership in Britain has gone into decline - and for a generation of younger people the prospects of getting onto the property ladder are looking increasingly bleak.More than quarter of a century ago, Peter Saunders published a major study of the positive impact widespread home ownership was having on British society. Back then, continued expansion seemed assured. But today, many people under forty find themselves priced out of owner-occupation. What their parents took for granted seems out of reach for Generation Rent.In this volume, Saunders investigates what has gone wrong - and what might be done now to put it right. He denies the problem has been caused by a failure to build enough new homes and emphasises instead the devastating impact on housing affordability of the explosion of cheap credit over the last two decades. Added to this has been the huge growth in the number of buy-to-let landlords, which has also driven prices higher.If we want to rectify generational inequity and restore a nation of home owners, he argues that these are the two key problems that have to be addressed. But his solutions will stir controversy.